I recently found an invitation in my inbox to come visit a new blog written by Kristine Hughes and Victoria Hinshaw, two of my favorite Regency and Victorian enthusiasts and researchers. Of course I dropped by immediately and found a delightful treasure trove of information. My next thought was to make sure all of you discovered their blog, Number One London, as well. So just to introduce you, here are Kristine Hughes and Victoria Hinshaw:

EB: Number One London is an exciting new blog! What do you intend to do and share with your newfound readers?

KH: We intend … Read more »

Periodically I get these non-descript packages from my editor and I always know what they are: Foreign Language editions. Oh, goody! What language is this going to be in and what will they do to the cover? I find the covers almost as interesting as the title translations.

Look at these wonderful renditions of This Rake of Mine:

I have to admit that when I opened the package yesterday with this Dutch version, I thought for a moment they’d inserted a vampire into the book. Just kidding!

Actually I love how each edition reflects a different aspect of the … Read more »

I think all writers have their own same three questions that come in daily. And I thought I would save everyone a lot of trouble and just answer them today in the blog. So in no particular order, here are the three questions that I get asked frequently:

Question No. 1: Will you write John, Ginger and Nate’s stories?

This has to be the most popular question that I get. And the answer is “Absolutely.” There seems to be a moment as a character comes to life on a page that as an author, you just know that they will … Read more »

Yes, when I heard that phrase last night on NPR, I grinned. I was listening to an interview with Colin Firth on Fresh Air, and he is so wonderfully intriguing. So when he described what he loves about acting, that it is a form of creative promiscuity, I knew exactly what he meant.

What Colin Firth was describing was the excitement and passion that an actor (or in my case, a writer) can put into projects, because the work we do is so finite. You start a film, you finish a film, you go to the next project. You sell … Read more »

I’ve been a bit sparse here of late because I’ve been swamped with the holidays and trying to finish the next book, Mad About the Duke. But with the new book on the shelves–yes, how could you have missed the new book???–How I Met My Countess, I’ve made a few trips outside my usual soapbox here and have visited a few other blogs and would love for you to stop by and leave comments there and hint . . . hint . . . there giveaways over there. Yes, prizes for commenting.

So you’ll want to stop … Read more »

I feel like I am hovering between so many things right now. The decade is nearly over. I’ve almost finished Mad About the Duke. And of course, How I Met My Countess arrives in stores tomorrow. I have to admit a certain excitement for all three things.

First of all, I have to say that I’ve felt that 2009 was just not my year. It was challenging, difficult and when I got sick, nearly deadly. But now with my feet back beneath me, I can’t wait for it to end. I put up the 2010 calendar tonight and honest … Read more »

Or, perhaps I should have named this post, What Was I Thinking? In the next few weeks I need to get all the Christmas shopping done. Cook Christmas dinner. Get all the stuff that has to be done for the arrival of How I Met My Countess on December 29th wrapped up and out the door. Oh, bother, I forgot. Get the newsletter written. And yes, finish the next book. Which is very close to being finished, but let me tell you, Christmas is putting the pinch on.

Oh, and to top it all off, my beloved Alphasmart had a … Read more »

Needless to say, this hasn’t been the easiest year for me, but I finally feel like I’ve found my feet again. (I am so Irish, that as I wrote that, I thought to myself, “oh, you’ve gone and cursed yourself now.”)

Curses aside, I ended up having to cancel a lot of things, including speaking at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference and at Emerald City Writer’s Conference, both of which I hated having to say “I can’t”, but I just couldn’t. Between the lost time writing and now trying to catch up, speaking would have been impossible. When you see … Read more »

I read an email from a life coach recently where he was discussing how we as human beings spend too much time ruminating about our past and not moving on. He urged those of us who read his advice to move out of the world of “should’a, could’a, would’as” and move forward. He compared the act of rumination to what cows do–chewing their cud over and over.

Not a pretty image, but good advice because we all have places in our lives that tend to stick to us like gum on your shoe and are just as hard to get … Read more »

Imagine me rolling my hands together, my eyes glazed over with a madness over my own inflated worth . . . or just see me laughing that I actually had more say in something than I ever thought possible.

You see as an author, you build a career slowly. And from the very beginning, you learn one very simple rule, well hopefully you learn this rule: The only thing you have power over is your writing. If you don’t learn this lesson quickly, you become an author who doesn’t last long. Or one who beats their head against the wall … Read more »